Chapter 10
Ten
THE APARTMENT WAS DISAPPOINTING. Technically it wasn’t even inside the city but sat just outside, hugging the hard shoulder of the motorway, little more than a run-down studio with a kitchen jammed in one corner and a narrow shower room in the other.
We came inside and dropped our bags on the scuffed lino. Stefano jimmied a lever and a bed – nearly colliding with the small sofa – creaked down from the wall.
‘It’s smaller than I remember,’ he said, uncurling the mattress.
I ran my finger along the countertop. It came away smeared with dust.
‘When did you say your uncle was last here?’
Stefano thought for a moment. ‘I think he died four years ago.’
‘He died?’
‘Yes.’
‘In here?’
I didn’t get the chance to probe him any further as, just then, something scuttled past my feet. I screamed and clambered onto a chair.
‘Hey, keep it down,’ he said. ‘The walls are really thin.’
And they were. At night, while Stefano lay curled up on the sofa – No, little bird, you take the bed, honestly, I insist – in the next apartment along, a loquacious Don Juan babbled away in Italian to his insatiable yipping mistress.
The daytimes weren’t much better. We had to get three buses just to reach any of the major landmarks, and by day two, Stefano’s brand of hands-off chivalry was starting to disintegrate.
‘Jeez, Shannon, we don’t have to go out all the time, you know?’
‘We’re in Rome, I want to see stuff.’
‘But it’s all tourist shit.’
‘I’m only here for a week.’
‘What’s the hurry? Rome’s been here for thousands of years, it’ll be here for thousands of years more.
Look,’ he said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
‘Why don’t we stay inside today? I’ll head out and get us some coffee, some pastries, and then we can have some, you know, time alone together, get to know each other a bit more . . .’
But I insisted. He could play the gallant all he liked, but I knew what he wanted, the bargain I’d been entered into.
He hadn’t invited me here out of the goodness of his heart; I knew he expected something in return.
But if we were going to have sex, if I was going to relinquish my virginity, I was determined to do so on my own terms.
On the third day, as evening cloaked the city with its inky pall and waiters rolled their tables out into the square, I came upon a violinist playing for coins beside a fountain.
I’d left Stefano – becoming increasingly bored by my frigidity – next to a stall selling carnival masks.
The musician had a small crowd around him.
A half-remembered melody ached from his bow. I moved closer.
A bystander, an old man with leathery skin and bushy eyebrows, stepped forward and offered me his hand.
I shook my head, embarrassed. He grinned and gestured again, his hand outstretched.
He had trusting eyes and a broken piano of a smile.
Why not? a small voice inside me said. I gave in and placed my fingers in the crease of his palm.
More people gathered. A woman sang softly in Italian.
The man was a good dancer. He held me close and spun me so my skirt whirled around my knees. I laughed, dizzy, feeling like I was in a movie, the leading lady – the star, finally, of my own life.
But then I saw Stefano, smiling mirthlessly, push through the crowd.
The old man, noticing, gave him a nod which Stefano answered by unhooking the man’s hands from my shoulder and lower back.
Sensing trouble, the old man offered a small bow and melted into the crowd.
Stefano took me in his arms and reluctantly continued the dance.
I looked over my shoulder, searching for the old man, wishing I could’ve thanked him or apologized to him somehow.
‘Where did he go?’ I whispered.
Stefano twirled me like a spinning top then clamped me to his chest.
‘Stef—’
‘Be quiet,’ he hissed, still smiling for the crowd. ‘Don’t you think you’ve embarrassed yourself enough for one day?’
THAT NIGHT, STEFANO GLARED at me from across the rickety Formica table.
‘You looked ridiculous.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You showed me up.’
‘I was just having fun.’
The oven hummed in the background, warming a cheap frozen pizza into something vaguely palatable.
‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ he asked. ‘Dancing with some vecchietto like that.’
‘It’s not like you were ever going to dance with me.’
‘I’m not a sissy.’
‘I never said you were.’
‘I don’t dance.’
‘You dance in movement studies.’
‘That’s different.’
‘How?’
‘Look, I don’t dance.’
‘Well, there you go.’
We did this for ten minutes, talking ourselves in circles. When the timer pinged, we ate in silence.
Stefano reached for another slice. ‘I didn’t think you were like that.’
‘Like what?’ I said, dropping a crust onto the plate between us.
‘Like’ – he searched for the words – ‘all showy. Today you were different. You acted like Victoria.’
This was news to me. I hadn’t been trying to act like Victoria. The square, the old man, the dance was just a spontaneous thing. And what was wrong with that? I’d enjoyed being the centre of attention for a moment. I’d enjoyed strangers applauding me, watching me.
‘I didn’t act like Victoria—’
‘You did,’ he said, cutting me off. He swallowed and wiped a string of cheese from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I thought you were different. I like girls that don’t act all . . . These girls who want to talk and show off? They’re whores. I didn’t think you were like that.’
I dipped my finger in a glob of tomato sauce and swirled it around my plate.
‘Are you saying Victoria’s a whore?’
I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what he thought of her, to confirm she was special, to confirm she was trash.
Stefano shrugged. ‘Sometimes, maybe, yeah.’ He took another bite. ‘You know I like her, she’s my friend, but she . . . I don’t know.’ He shrugged again. ‘I mean, she sucked that guy’s dick at that party—’
‘What guy?’ I said, my heart beating faster.
‘That graduate guy, the Heathcliff guy—’
‘She – she wouldn’t do that.’
‘Obi found them together at the bottom of the garden. It broke his heart, man.’ Stefano shook his head and took another bite.
‘But they’re still together?’ I said, my voice pleading and thin.
‘Who knows what those guys have got going on,’ he muttered, spraying crumbs across the table. ‘But that’s what I mean.’
‘What?’
He sighed, at pains to explain himself. ‘Look, I’m a traditional guy. I like girls who act like girls should.’
‘Like me?’
‘Like you.’
I realized I’d been holding my breath. I exhaled and licked the sauce from my finger. We continued eating.
I should’ve said something, of course I should’ve said something.
I should’ve defended Victoria or vilified her or, I don’t know what, run out of the apartment, called my grandma, got the first flight home or whatever.
But right then, I felt exhausted by the situation.
I knew that nothing I said or did would change Stefano’s opinion of me or Victoria.
‘You’re a nice girl, Shannon. My nice girl.’
He looked up at me with those wet hangdog eyes and, in that moment, I felt something like pity for him.
I would leave him – of course I would. The idea was already forming, the words taking shape, buzzing on my tongue like a lick of sherbet.
It was so simple. I didn’t have to be here.
He’d given me a bed, a place to sleep, but that didn’t mean I owed him my body.
Despite the uneven arrangement of the last few days, I still had a choice.
When this trip was over, when I was finally home and away from this awful place, this wretched airless room, I’d end it.
Besides, with one half-baked remark he’d unwittingly lit a fire in my belly.
You acted like Victoria.
Those people – the man in the square, the crowd of smiling onlookers – they’d had no idea who I was.
They didn’t know I was shy. They didn’t know I was unpopular.
They didn’t know about my northern accent or whether my hair colour was natural or not.
They didn’t know about the dinky house I’d grown up in.
They didn’t know about my insecurities, how I felt about my breasts, my skin, my teeth.
They hadn’t a clue. In front of them, I could be whoever I wanted.
Stefano was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. No, I was elsewhere. In the square. Dancing, dancing, dancing—